Chapter 73

When I crawl out of bed after another night of not sleeping, Carter is making breakfast. Ang is sitting at the table.

“They dropped her off a few minutes ago.” Carter says not looking at me.

“Thanks for getting her around. And feeding her.” I say sitting beside my daughter.

“Can we go to the park?” She asks me.

“Absolutely.” I grin.

“Can Carter come?”

“I would love too.” He winks at her making her giggle.

He hands me a cup of coffee and seems to be studying my face.

“I’ll go get ready.” I say suddenly needing far away from his scrutinizing eyes.

I close my bedroom door and lean against it. Wishing I could go back to last night and take back all the things that I told him.

Sighing, I grab a sun dress and slip it on. I throw my hair up and apply light makeup. When I look in the mirror, I see the exhaustion. Shaking it off I emerge to them waiting for me.

“Let’s goooo.” Ang begs. I smile and lead her to the car. The ride is quiet.

Ang takes off for the slide as soon as the car is off. I sit on a bench and keep my eyes glued to her.

“Have you spoken to Abby about not sleeping?” Carter asks sitting beside me.

“Yeah.” I say flatly.

“And?” He presses.

“It’s not exactly normal circumstances, Carter. I can’t just hope to sleep. It doesn’t work like that.”

“How bad is the PTSD?”

“Bad enough to force myself to stay awake for months on end.” I laugh bitterly.

“What’s it like? The dreams.”

“It’s like my own personal hell. It’s like my own personal Freddy Kruger. He waits for me to fall asleep.” I sigh.

“And then you hurt yourself?”

“Sometimes. Most of the time.” I nod.

“Christ.” He mutters.

“Nothing helps. Abby told me that I need to see it through but, I always wake up bleeding. Wondering if next time I won’t wake up at all.”

“See what through?” He asks.

“She calls it the tunnel.”

“The one that you don’t see the light in anymore?” He muses.

“That’s the one.”

“Mom thinks that if someone is there, when you fall asleep, that it will make a difference.”

“Maybe. I just don’t want this to fall on someone else’s shoulders. It’s my problem.”

“I’ll do it.” He says without hesitation.

“No, Carter.”

“Cassandra, I left you once. I left you drowning. Let me try to help you swim.”

“I let you go, Carter. To move on and you did.”

“See? That’s the problem though. I tricked myself into thinking that I did. And as soon as I came back, as soon as I saw you again, I knew I was lying.” He laughs bitterly.

“What are you trying to say Carter?” I feel something unfamiliar blooming in my chest. Hope. We all know what they say about hope, it breeds eternal misery and what not.

“Mommy! Mommy, look at me!” Evangeline laughs interrupting his response. I turn and face her. She’s hanging on the monkey bars.

“You better be careful young lady.” I laugh.

Carter sighs and stands up.

“We should go soon. Mom wants to see Ang and Kai said he was cool with me stealing her today.”

Instead of responding I whistle, and Ang runs over to us. We load her into the car.

I have him drop me off to work and use my car to go to Elana’s. I told him I was fine walking, but he said he’d be back to get me.

“Today I want to talk about breaking the cycle. We live the cycle. People like us lived hundreds of years creating this cycle. We need to break the cycle of apologizing for everything. Instead of negativity we need to replace it with positivity. I want us to start today.” I say passing around paper.

“What are we supposed to be writing?” Emily asks.

“Write a cycle you think should be broken.”

Instead of more questions they do as I ask. It surprises and pleases me.

I also write one down.

When they’re finished, they pass the papers to me, and I clear my throat.

“I would never make you unwillingly share your private thoughts, today I however, would like to share mine.” I say surprising them. “Yes I know, shocking. We’re all private about these discussions. Perhaps that’s the problem sometimes.”

I stand up and walk to the center of the circle instead of remaining on the outside.

“I think a cycle that needs broken is back and forth. Most of the time back and forth is toxic. Other times it’s because we destroy things because we fear them. Afraid to love, afraid to be vulnerable. Exposed or open. Afraid that it will destroy us so instead we destroy it. We revel in the power of destroying something simply because we know that we can. We sabotage. Anything. Everything. Simply because it threatens us. Or maybe because we think on some subconscious level, we don’t deserve to be happy. We fall short sometimes, and it drills into us that it was our fault. The voice in our heads saying you that we are not doing enough, it isn't our own. It gets drilled into us. It's given us to us by society. Sometimes by parental figures or partners who implicitly taught us that our worth is based on output and achievement. Don't get me wrong; Getting things done is great but it has nothing to do with our worth. Our short comings should teach us to push ourselves harder. To work harder to achieve our goals. I think the cycle that needs broken is back and forth. Because until we do that, we can never move forward. And there is nothing scarier than being stuck."